


and through the spaces of the dark, you;

by explosivesky



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, hints of river/eleven and nine/ten/rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:13:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28775121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosivesky/pseuds/explosivesky
Summary: All he sees are ghosts, Amy wandering, touching his face, and Clara’s hand stretching out, the regeneration energy reaching towards her. He can feel it. He wants to comfort her. I’m yours, I swear, I’ll be yours in a minute, and nobody can ever, ever take that away from you.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Kudos: 4





	and through the spaces of the dark, you;

**I**.

Some creatures believe in a God; an immortal being, all-knowing and all-powerful, capable of destroying and creating worlds at will, inciting wars for fun and growing gardens for pleasure; toying with the soul and heart of every individual, pushing them together, pulling them apart; experimenting with mass and matter and cause and effect like a tinkerer in a workshop.

But they believe in the wrong Gods.

Some creatures don’t believe in any God at all; they’re wrong, too.

**II**.

The Time Vortex isn’t tangible, it is a thought, a force. Time itself is not even a real notion, but the idea’s circulated too long for him to correct any of it now, anyway; there are only moments and truths that burn in the blackness like the flicker of a flame, fog on a windowpane. Time is a being; a guide with its claws in his chest, encasing him, smothering him, propelling him forward. It’s an art he has somehow mastered into a dream. When he travels in time, he doesn’t travel in a direction; it’s more like a photo album, a vast array of pages and pages of pictures he sinks into.

Where was he? Ah, yes. God.

The Time Vortex is the closest thing to a God any being in the universe will ever see. Except God is nothing without followers, and this one only has him.

That’s what makes it dangerous. A lonely madman leading a God by the hand. Anything could happen.

There’s a reason he comes with a warning: _Anything could happen, you know._ He isn’t always in control of it. _Anything could happen to you and I, though great, am still limited._ Can you accept that? I told you. I told you. I told you.

The second voice is not his own.

He ran away from home in a ship that whispered in his ear: One day, there will be nothing but you and I. Anything could happen. I am anything. I know this. Trust me.

The Time Vortex is power, and beauty, and devastation, and birth. It is merciless, it is merciful. He stared into once, as a boy, and the things he saw turned him into a vessel: all of time and space, sitting under his hearts, pouring out of his mouth. His tongue invented the stars. He bled and they spilled out of his veins.

God, it whispers. How does it feel to be lonely?

The Doctor gets ideas, you know. Sometimes he’s not sure which of them is the God.

**III**.

Rose Tyler absorbs the Time Vortex to save his life.

But it isn’t Rose; it’s the vortex using her body, her soul, to escape into a physical form. The voice laughs in his ear. _Oh, dear,_ it says. _As if I’d let you get away from me._

But to save _her_ life, he kills himself anyway; though her skin burns, her lips are cold and dead. The Time Vortex has its own motives. He holds Rose in his arms as she shivers, and he can feel the explosion inside of her, tying her intestines in knots, blackening her lungs, collapsing her aorta. The energy doesn’t kill him; it changes him. Everybody lives. Just this once, Rose. Everybody lives.

_As if you’re allowed to die._

And she is?

_God, how does it feel to be lonely?_

**IV**.

Rose leaves anyway, in the end, trapped in a parallel dimension on the other side of a wall; the words don’t escape his mouth and he burns up a sun to see her smile one more time. There’s Martha, after, who loves him and he is incapable of love, or so he thinks; _This emotion,_ the voice whispers, _What is it? You’d stop your hearts if I’d let you._

Resentment, he answers to nobody. I resent you. You know.

_I told you. I told you. I told you._

They deserve better than me.

_Do they deserve better than_ me?

I don’t know.

_Correct,_ it says. _I do._

He doesn’t love Martha; maybe it’s out of spite. If he’s being honest, he’s loved more than Rose – Romana, for a start, and Peri, though it’s never quite worked out for him – and he’s experienced this chain of loss throughout his life enough times to trigger it like a tripwire. He could have loved Martha, maybe, if he’d wanted to. She’d been clever and strong and brave – they always are – and he could have, but he didn’t.

Donna’s different. He’s settled into his brooding; there’s a spiral descent she doesn’t let him fall down. He still says her name when he thinks nobody is listening. _Rose._

Donna asks. He says, _We were together._

The Time Vortex laughs somewhere deep in the cortex of his brain, but he recognizes it for what it is, now. It’s tragedy and inevitability.

There’s a defining moment. The voice is quiet. _You understand. I’m not doing this to you. You understand._

I understand.

_I know. There are fixed points. There are sacrifices that have to be made._

Tell me something.

_It will get better, Doctor. There is still so much to come. I can see it. I have something for you._

Where? When?

_Not near. Not far. Someday._

Donna’s mind singes under the weight of a Time Lord’s knowledge; she’s like Rose all over again, the inside of her skull on fire, and he takes her face between his hands while she cries and he says _I’m sorry, I’m sorry._ He takes her memories away and traps them in a room with a locked door, and if she accesses them again, she’ll die.

Maybe. The details are always a little fuzzy; he’d rather not take the chance.

Somehow, there’s two of him, and he stands on a beach watching the human version of him whisper what he couldn’t say into Rose’s ear, and their lips meet, and at least he ended up happy somewhere, in one life, in any dimension.

**V**.

He’s never been happier to go; as Eleven, he’s frantic and non-stop, boundless waves of energy, barely stopping to examine the scars and regret. There is Amelia Pond, seven years old and alone, and, well, he fucks that up tremendously by being twelve years late instead of five minutes, and then two more years, and keeping time is really something he should be better at, but—

The voice is calmer, friendly in this new regeneration. _This is it,_ the Vortex says mildly. _It happens like this and it’s for the best._

_I trust you,_ he thinks; he’s getting better at this. He’s growing.

There’s a rhyme and reason to every movement, every action, every decision; he learns this quickly by watching Rory die and reappear time and time again, like pressing a reset button; and always it’s necessary. Amy’s happiness is necessary.

Does he love Amy? The thought crosses his mind – but he looks at her and she is seven years old again, waiting in a garden, and the love he feels is _I can’t live without you, you’re all this face has known, my hearts won’t know how to beat._ The other voice is silent. The TARDIS hums.

Amy kisses him once, but she is a little girl to him and he failed. She doesn’t love him, anyway.

But, he realizes, it probably would’ve been better for him if she had; she stands before her own grave and tells him goodbye. His eyes are wet. He reaches for her and his fingers find empty space. River’s hand curls around his shoulder; she keeps staring at the angel and lets him grieve.

_She was a little girl in a garden,_ he screams in his mind; _She was a little girl in a garden and now she’s dead._

He watches River walk around the console, her heels clicking against the floor, black dress billowing. He’s lost her, too; not yet, maybe, but he’s seen it happen, knows it’s coming. She doesn’t, though. She’s with him now and she’s breathing.

He loves River. That has never been a doubt of his. He’s never had a choice in that matter.

The Time Vortex loves River, too, having played a hand in her existence; it’s not quite an interference, but it’s enough – how she carries the endless omniscience with her, arrogant and sexy. He feels the sentience of it, the ache they share in the space between them. It’s like they’re both looking at a ghost.

Everyone is a ghost to him; he wishes forever wasn’t such a long time to be alive.

**VI**.

It’s the last straw; he just wants to be alone.

(Truthfully, that’s the last thing he wants, but he can’t keep letting the people around him die as he fails to save them, and so he saves nobody at all.)

He lives on a cloud. _How childish,_ the voice says, almost mocking him. _A cloud, Doctor, really?_

You loved her too.

The voice is silent for a minute. _There’s so much yet to come,_ it says, laced with such finality and omnipotence that he senses his skin tingling, electricity like a current around his veins. He’s not sure he wants whatever is about to come.

And then he meets her.

Her name is Clara, and he avoids her as best he can because he can _feel_ it: her curiosity, her cleverness, her quick wit and gentle sarcasm – everything about her is telling him to hold on and not let go, but that isn’t something he _does_ anymore, and so—

She’s unfortunately persistent, and Vastra says _Pond_ into the receiver, and the universe is conspiring against him.

_For,_ the voice murmurs, but he doesn’t quite understand it yet. _For you. Not against._

She’s beautiful. He notices that, too. She makes him blush and he can’t seem to tell her no; her fingers wrap around the back of his neck, and then she’s—

He _wants_ to kiss her, which is why he doesn’t let his hands brush against her face. She’s small, and he could have easily stopped her if he’d really been uncomfortable, but he doesn’t. He thinks her lips touch his like supernovas. He can feel himself collapsing into her, two stars absorbing each other.

She cries when he gives her a key and he doesn’t question it; but then the ice woman’s pulling her out the doors, off the cloud, falling—

You can’t do this to me, he thinks frantically. You can’t do this to me again—

_This is not what it seems,_ is all the voice says, and then nothing.

They lay her out on a table with her hands crossed over her stomach and her eyelids shut. She breathes in little shuddering breaths, like a pattering of rain; he kneels beside her and lays his palm over her fingers, his other hand stroking her face, and _oh,_ this is everything he didn’t want from her.

Her lips are parted, red and flush against her pale skin. Her eyes dart between his own. He whispers quietly, “Will you come away with me?” His voice sounds like a lover, words a caress in the air. He wants to tell her, _You don’t understand, but I need you._

Bargains with the universe. He’s owed this one thing. This _one thing—_

_It doesn’t work like that, you know it doesn’t._

Shut up.

_I told you._

She dies anyway, but she saves his life in doing so. He holds her. She murmurs, “Run. Run you clever boy. And remember.”

Clara Oswin Oswald, her gravestone says. He feels the solar system exploding into orbit underneath his hearts. If she’s alive once, twice – there’s hope, there’s always hope – she could be out there, waiting for him in the universe.

**VII**.

And she is.

She rings him from the future and he’s at her doorstep as quickly as he’s allowed, knocking impatiently on the wood, peaking through the windows.

She has no idea who he is, and he doesn’t understand how she’s here at all, but there are certain things he’s learned not to question, and so he doesn’t. Yet.

But that aching is there again, pounding against his throat and the insides of his wrists, and he looks down at her and remembers how it felt to kiss her.

He saves her life, they share a milkshake, and she’s beginning to trust him. Though she’s not intimidated by him, or impressed in seemingly any way – she’s bossy and challenges him and orders him around like he’s a dog she picked up on the side of the road, rather than an alien from outer space who sought her out over hundreds of years.

“Does this work?” She asks, smirking. “Is this what you actually do? Do you just crook your finger and people just jump into your snogbox and fly away?”

He feels his jaw drop. “It is not a snogbox,” he retorts, but his hearts beat a little too loudly in his chest. He tries not to stare at her mouth.

She makes him return the next night; punctuality’s not his strong suit but he’s not giving up on her.

What is this? He questions. What are you playing at?

_All in due time, Doctor,_ the voice replies humourously. _As everything is._

**VIII.**

The TARDIS doesn’t like her, but slowly comes around; the Time Vortex now remains silent.

No matter where he takes her, he’s certain she’s saved his life more than he’s saved hers; it makes him worry about what he’s dragging her into. He’s had enough of sacrifices and he’s not allowed to die. There are bigger forces controlling his fate. He’s afraid of what she is, of why she’s there, of everything about her: she’s too perfect to be real.

But she really _doesn’t_ know, doesn’t remember, and he wants to spend the rest of his life making her laugh, smile lighting up the suns of a thousand galaxies.

“Running away with a spaceman in a box,” he says. “Anything could happen to you.”

Her smile is dangerous. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

If she had held his gaze a second longer, his hands would have been tangled around damp strands of brown hair and his mouth would have covered hers.

But she turns away, and nothing happens at all.

He’s never quite been attracted to someone the way he is to Clara: something inside of her beckons him like a calling; he forges a new home in the spaces where his fingers fit solidly between hers.

His love for her becomes more and more obvious; the cyberplanner draws it from his head, Angie and Artie tease him mercilessly, and her eyes shine bright when he pulls her into his arms. He refuses to lose her. He’ll do anything; give anything. He talks to the Time Vortex at night like he’ll receive a promise, but he never does. _Please,_ he begs; _Please give me this one thing._

The next time it speaks to him is after she jumps into his timestream, shattering herself across his entire life, and she is the sole reason he exists at all. He won’t let her be alone for a thousand years. He’s done that and he won’t let her do it too, even if it means destroying them both in the process.

Miraculously, he doesn’t; he makes it out, carrying her in his arms, and he tucks her into his bed aboard the TARDIS. He kisses her forehead and he cries at the stains of her own tears streaking across her cheeks.

_You were having a bad day,_ the voice finally says. _So I made you something pretty._

The notion takes a moment for him to comprehend, his brain processing vast amounts of information at lightning speeds, neurons firing; somewhere in time and space, he’s whispering into her hair: _You’re beautiful, you’re so, so beautiful._ His palms are damp as he holds them against his eyes. No wonder she’s perfect for him in every way.

_The universe doesn’t owe you anything, Doctor,_ it tells him. _But I do. And that’s the same thing._

**IX**.

It’s not even the half of it.

One minute he’s spinning her in his arms, planning a vacation in Mesopotamia and Mars and cocktails on the moon, and the next he’s a step away from destroying his own planet again and her eyes are wide and spilling over, head shaking _no._ He can’t ignore it. He promised himself he’d make her smile, and here she is, doing the opposite.

“Look at you,” she says bitterly. “The three of you. The warrior, the hero, and…you.”

He’s forgotten, maybe, he has; a tear drips from her chin onto the collar of her jacket. He wants to kiss her. He thinks about her Victorian era, and his retreat to the top of a cloud, and how her mouth against his was like an electric pulse, shocking him back to life. Maybe I’ll remember, he wants to say. Let me kiss you.

But no, of course—“Be a Doctor,” she tells him instead, and the ocean crashes over his head.

It’s only later when he’s in the TARDIS with Clara tucked against him, curled up in his lap, that he realizes he’d have nothing without her. He touches his lips to her hair. He murmurs, “Thank you.”

She smiles sleepily. “For?”

“Hope. For hope.”

Her hand lazily slips against the side of his face, thumb tracing his jawline. Her breath is warm and comforting against his skin. She says, “You’re not alone, Doctor. You’re never alone.”

His arms grip her tighter.

“Only because of you,” he whispers. “Everything’s because of you.”

She presses a delicate kiss to the crook of his neck, over the veins pulsing with the beats of his hearts. She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t have to.

**X**.

“Emergency,” she says frantically over the phone. “You’re my boyfriend.”

“Ding-dong, okay,” he answers without thinking, grin splitting wide. “I may be a bit rusty in some areas, but I will glance at a manual.”

Of course, it’s too good to be true: she needs him for a family Christmas dinner and that’s all, but the turkey’s dreadful and he’s so, so used to this: the TARDIS laughs at him when she carries the pan downstairs and into the Time Winds. She’s gone back to book tables at restaurants, and to watch missed episodes of shows, and for ordinary, human things he shouldn’t find so endearing but does anyway.

It’s _almost_ okay, until they discover Trenzalore again, which is both a blessing and a curse.

He understands immediately.

This is it, isn’t it, he asks in his mind.

_You know I can’t answer that,_ the voice answers.

He can’t leave; the Time Lords are whispering at him through the crack in the wall, and he can never, ever leave.

He has quick, flashing images of Clara growing old and frail, and burying her body in a graveyard, and he suddenly feels sick at the idea of the vast battlefield in the future and Clara’s body somewhere unrecognizable in the middle of it.

He sends her away. He refuses to live through that.

He doesn’t say goodbye at first, either, because what would he tell her: _I can’t live without you and that’s what I’ll have to do. I can’t watch you die. I can’t live in a universe where you no longer exist._

She comes back anyway; not once, but twice. The first time it’s three hundred years later and he’s older and walking with a limp but she’s as young and beautiful as ever, hair falling over her face, eyes damp and shining and afraid, but she turns to him and she’s shouting furiously, “You didn’t even say goodbye—”

In his head, he sees another universe where he pulls her in and kisses her and he says, _You idiot, I love you, I’m not going to bury you,_ but he only hugs her instead and tries not to let her go.

He promises not to send her away, and he’s not lying. He has no intention of sending her home again – he’s missed her, he’s missed more than he can ever explain, he’d fall asleep thinking about the curve of her cheek and the way her eyelashes brushed when she blinked and the tilt of her mouth, and now—

Barnable is sitting on the ground, waiting for his return, and his hearts flicker and die. Amy. He looks like Amy, like that little girl in a garden, and he can’t condemn this boy to death without him.

The second time she returns, it’s been almost nine hundred years and he’s an old man, wheedling away at toys in a fake workshop amidst a battlefield. The way she looks at him hasn’t changed. He thinks she’s gotten more and more beautiful as time has passed, though for her it’s all happened in the same day.

She places her hands over his own, leans her head on his lap. He strokes her hair without realizing it. The Daleks call for him once more and he knows this is it: even he runs out of time eventually. He can’t look at her when he stands; not at first. He stops before the stairs. She’s crying again.

He wipes away her tears, his fingers curling in her hair. He brings her close and kisses her forehead tenderly, delicately. In his mind, he says, Thank you.

_For?_ The voice replies.

Letting her be the last thing I’ll really see. Touch. Feel.

_Aren’t those last two the same?_

No. Not even close.

**XI**.

He doesn’t die, and it’s because of Clara, it’s always because of Clara.

He can feel it coming, though, and his time is up: his next regeneration will be hers and hers alone. He calls himself in the future, and he can hear the coldness in his own tone, and then Clara’s voice, angelic as ever. He almost says _I love you,_ but he won’t take that away from what’s yet to come. He tells her goodbye a second time because he knows he won’t be able to now, in person.

All he sees are ghosts, Amy wandering, touching his face, and Clara’s hand stretching out, the regeneration energy reaching towards her. He can feel it. He wants to comfort her. I’m yours, I swear, I’ll be yours in a minute, and nobody can ever, ever take that away from you.

Thank you, he thinks again, and then he is gone.

**XII**.

Her face is the first thing he sees.

Instantly, the connection is more powerful: it’s not simply that she’s the first face this face saw, it’s that she’s the first thing he sees _at all._

And she is infinitely more gorgeous than he’d previously given her credit for.

But he doesn’t have the chance to tell her because they’re crashing and her eyes are flickering with fear and his kidneys are organizing themselves inside of his body and _Christ,_ he’s forgotten how painful this ordeal is—

Except she’s there, this time, and somehow he thinks he’ll make it out all right.

The Time Vortex murmurs inside his mind, almost fondly, _As if I’d ever let you get away from me._

He’s still figuring himself out when they land back on the cusp of the Victorian era, and Clara’s distrustful, calculating, waiting for him to prove himself to her. He waits it out, somewhat angrily and impatiently; those are the first two facts he knows about himself. He’s rougher, more aggressive, and he loves her. There’s nothing he can do.

He waits until the phone call and tells her, somewhat bitingly, “It’s your boyfriend.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she snaps, snatching the phone and walking outside.

He counts to fifty.

She’s staring at him cautiously, her eyes wet again, clutching the mobile to her chest.

“I’m not on the phone,” he says frustratedly, gesturing around him. “I’m right here. I’m standing in front of you.”

What he means is, _I_ love you. Not him. _Me._

She throws her arms around his neck and he freezes when her body presses against his, but he tilts his head and breathes in the scent of her hair, and he’s right; everything is okay.

He doesn’t know how to _stop_ touching her after that, and so he doesn’t; he’d been tactile before, but it doesn’t compare to now. His physical appearance doesn’t bother him, and it doesn’t bother her – much. She seems more keen to hide him when he wanders into her classroom during lessons, but she’s _always_ busy teaching, it’s not _his_ fault he’s so impatient.

She points to a desk near the back of the room the next time he struts in, and he sits wordlessly, obeying her. The students barely glance at him anymore, too used to his random interruptions. He doesn’t bother limiting them to Wednesdays; he’s selfish. He wants her constantly. That’s new, too.

The bells rings and he meanders to her desk, hands in his pockets. She rolls her eyes. “You’ve got to stop doing this.”

“You always say that,” he responds mildly. “You don’t mean it.”

She sighs, but doesn’t protest. “Why are you here, anyway? You know my schedule.”

He shrugs; his fingers curl around her elbow seemingly without noticing it. He gets her attention by touching her instead of telling her, now; he’s not sure if it’s a change she’s welcome to, but she never seems to pull away.

She turns to him, eyebrow raised, waiting. He says, “I miss you. When I’m not with you. I miss you.”

Her breath catches in her lungs; her lips part slightly, cheeks pinking. “What?”

He feels suddenly embarrassed at the way she’s looking at him. He scowls. “Must I repeat myself?”

But her voice is sincere. “You miss me?”

His stare softens slightly, fingers tugging at her. She steps nearer and doesn’t notice. He murmurs, “Clara. Of course.”

Her gaze darts to his mouth and back. She swallows. She says, “You weren’t like this before.”

He understands what she means. He replies, “Well, I wasn’t me before.”

She doesn’t gain anything from the response. She pushes, “But you’re – you know.” Her own hand wraps around his coat. They’re unusually close. “You’ve never looked at me like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like you love me.” The words are blunt and unapologetic. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. His arm is around her waist.

It’s a failure on his past that she’s unaccustomed to the spark in his eye, and the reaction of his body when she’s standing next to him. He should have been giving her this for her entire life; every single one of her lives. He exists, not just because of her, but solely _for_ her.

Why hasn’t he told her? He—

His palm cups her cheek. She’s nervous. He can feel her heart beating fast against the cage of her ribs.

He says softly, “I’m sorry.”

She blinks. “For what?”

“Clara.” Her name is held carefully in his mouth. “I couldn’t give you what you deserved, back then. I wasn’t… _me._ I wasn’t this person.”

She doesn’t seem to be following. “What’s the difference?”

“Who I am _now,_ ” he emphasizes, “is _yours._ ”

And he kisses her.

He should have been doing it all along, truthfully; he’s not sure why he’s waited so long to feel her lips pressing against his own. Her fingernails scratch against his scalp and he wants to memorize the path of her skeleton underneath her skin. Her mouth opens against his, her body fitting solidly in his arms.

He pulls back. He murmurs, “You had to share him with too many others. But I’m yours entirely. I only belong to you. I only want _you._ ”

Her eyelashes flutter. She says, “ _Oh_.”

“I love you. I love _you._ ”

“Yeah.” Her mouth tilts; there’s a gleam to her gaze that wasn’t there previously. “Getting that.”

His nose brushes hers. “Say it.”

She doesn’t even try to deny it; she shudders. “You’ve always known,” she answers breathlessly. “I love you.”

His thumbs brush underneath her eyes, wiping her tears away. He says churlishly, “I promised I’d never make you cry again.”

She waves him away, shaking her head with a laugh.

“Happy tears,” she replies, her smile wide. “I’m happy.”

**XIII**.

_Are you happy, Doctor?_

I’m happy. Yes. I’m happy.

_All that time,_ the voice finishes. _But you’re here._

And you know what?

_What?_

“It was worth it,” he says aloud, and Clara shoots him a bemused look from between the bookshelves.

_I told you._

“What was?” She asks, fingers grazing across thick volumes with engraved titles.

He only smiles.

You.


End file.
